


30 prompts drabbles (6-10)

by natalunasans



Series: Smaller on the Outside [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Drabble Collection, Driving, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Humorous Ending, Loving Marriage, M/M, Memory Loss, Missing, Other, Relationship Negotiation, Rescue, Spooky, Storms, Suspense, TARDIS materialisation noise, and especially until donna gets her memory back, and i don't want to mark OT4 until it happens, but it's kind of there already, i don't want to mark F/F until they figure it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-08-23 10:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8323645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalunasans/pseuds/natalunasans
Summary: thanks to: http://stonelions.tumblr.com/post/124337611940/30-multipurpose-prompts-open-to-interpretation





	1. 8. Face on the other side of a dark window. (Donna Noble)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to: http://stonelions.tumblr.com/post/124337611940/30-multipurpose-prompts-open-to-interpretation

Doing the washing up, Donna hears an alien yet familiar noise. An emptiness where she senses she should feel relief, can’t remember why. Looks out, by reflex; sees only her own reflection overlaid on night sky. 

Something flashes in her brain. It hurts. Been happening more these days, she must just be tired.

A waking dream? A face beyond hers in the kitchen window, glimpsed against the dark as they peer in. Somehow she doesn’t scream. If a burglar, or worse, why'd they look so sad? Must've been the light. They’ve vanished before she can try to scare them off.


	2. 7. One foot in another world (10/S!M, angst --> domestic?)

He always told himself as soon as he was well he'd leave. Tip the Doctor in a black hole, steal their TARDIS… find his own TARDIS, just disappear one day… he’s imagined it so many ways, plans feel like memories.

Illness compresses his world, their shared world; he doesn't get better, but… life does. The Doctor learns patience, the Master learns gentleness.

Sometimes his broken timesense sees things it shouldn't. Remembers possible futures he’s never planned, some of them warm and soft and alarmingly... _good_.

He redirects his scheming to staying alive, pain management, making the Doctor happy: challenges abound!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the gates of commitment unwired, and nobody trying to leave" -- L. Cohen (Crazy to love you)
> 
> "i imagine death so much it seems just like a memory" -- LMM's Hamilton


	3. 10. the photograph. (Donna & Martha, angst)

There’s a selfie on Donna’s phone, hugging a woman she can’t remember, their eyes crinkled in laughter. Wilf, oddly regretful, suggests: “someone from... work?” (She’d have remembered.)

She even asks Shaun.  He glances, blurts out “we don’t all know each other!” half-joking, half-frustrated, half-worried...

(and Donna’s meant to be good at math!)

Because that’s the other thing: as dull as her life’s been, she’d still notice if a chunk of it disappeared. She’s almost certain it bloody has.

Staring at the photo again, willing a memory, she feels (imagines?) warmth, energy, wit. Donna misses this friend terribly… whoever she was.


	4. 7. One foot in another world (Shaun/Donna, introspection?)

Donna’s been acting strangely, her whole family has. But Shaun thinks they like him, even seemed... relieved? when she first brought him round.

And it was all fine, until... after they got the flat? after the wedding? No, he realises, this weirdness started after the lotto win! Desperate to remember who gave her the ticket... Probably the shock of it. 

She’s always been a bit odd, but that’s them both: a little too sincere, a little too fairness-minded to entirely fit in. 

But sometimes she mentions impossible things, looks so distant, so lost… he fears he’ll end up losing her.


	5. 9. Driving for many hours through mountains. (Jo Grant & 3rd doctor)

Beastly weather. They’ve got Bessie’s roof up but rain blasts straight in from alternating sides. The Doctor drives in silence, breaking concentration only with long strange curses when the storm obscures the windscreen or whips them about. Jo shivers in her sodden but stylish mac, tries to follow the damp map in the twilight.  Why not borrow a modern car?  The Doctor’s gadgets!

They near a castle, strange lights from within ruined turrets betray their destination.   
Pursued by soggy, furious aliens, a familiar black-suited figure rushes out, arms waving.

“I hate him.  Wish he were already dead!”

“No, you don’t.”


End file.
